Scared Of English Grammar?

Recently I read a few passages in English.


Here is a conversation between a boy and a girl.

He smiles, "even if I think you're being rather subjunctive and moody about all this, I so admire your figure of speech that I would like to predicate my life on yours."
So he gets himself into an indicative mood and says,
"It would be appreciated by me if you would be married to me"

"Are you being passive aggressive?" she asks interrogatively
"That's quite a compliment," she blushes -- and gives him 'appositive 'response

At the ceremonies they exchange wedding vowels about the compound subject of marriage.

Throughout their marriage, their structure is perfectly parallel and their verbs never disagree with their subjects.

After many a linking verve, comma splice and interjection, they conceive the perfect parenthesis. Then come some missing periods and powerful contractions, and into the world is born their beautiful little boy.They know it is a boy because of its dangling participle!"
On reading this passage I could not but be reminded of Wren and Martin.

• 
  English grammar was knocked into our heads — sometimes literally — by stern teachers who wouldn't stand for metaphors being mixed or conjunctions being tossed about loosely.
  
  I have a faded copy with pages falling.The single cause of the falling standards of the English language in India is that no one uses Wren & Martin anymore.
  
  
  Should we really care if the spellings change, if grammar is thrown out of the window and non-English words creep into the language at an alarming rate? Should we wag our collective fingers at our children for mangling the language in their emails, text messages, and essays?
  After all language is a means of communication.As long as others understand what we express, what harm is there if we swerve a little from perfect grammar?
• Many ask this question.
  
  
  On reading the above passage , I am reminded of a poem'Grammarian's Funeral written by Robert Browning.
  The grammarian lived nameless in pursuit of mastering his studies with perfection focussing it on Greek Grammar.He sacrificed his youth and health for the sake of Grammar.He thought that his grammar would give him true understanding of life..
  
  The question is whether it is better to live the life or understand one's life.The two cannot be simultaneous.Experiencing a moment is totally different from contemplating about it.The grammarian solely devoted his life in the study of Grammar and lost his health and life.
• 
  There is always a tendency to degrade grammar and set aside its importance saying that we need not be very particular about grammatical construction unless we take special courses in language.For others it is said that they should read a lot, write a lot without caring for grammar rules.As the vocabulary improves and correct usages are learnt, automatically grammar will get set even without knowing technical terms in Grammar.
• 
  My father ,being an English teacher ensured that our summer holidays were spent on doing exercises in Wren and Martin.My son and grandson write very good flawless English, though they do not know much of Grammar rules.
  
  Here comes in handy the episode in the life of Narayana Bhattathri who wrote Naraayaneeyam. Poonthaanam, another great poet who wrote in Malayalam, had also come there to worship Krishna. One day he took some of his Malayalam poems to Bhattathiri to correct them but was dismissed with the haughty remark by Bhattathri that Poonthanam had no knowledge of Sanskrit and that he didn't know the correct meaning of even Malayalam words and grammar and that the construction of verses was very poor.Poonthanam went back dejected.
• 
  Lord Guruvayurappan appeared in Bhattathri's dream and said that he preferred Poonthanam's Bhakthi to Bhattathri 's vibhakthi, that is grammatical knowledge. Narayanabhattathri realised that it was a blow to his haughtiness and apologized to Poonthanam .
  I leave it friends to conclude what Lord Krishna suggested.

Jayasala42

 

Thank you Geeta. I too studied only in Tamil medium upto High School.It was an advantage that our father was an English teacher.we were taught the nuances of English Grammar, even though our syllabus didn't cover so much of Grammar.
Jayasala42

 

Thank you Jeeves for the kind response.Though we murmured whenever our father asked us to do exercise in Wren and martin, that helped me a lot to improve my writing,to draft letters to Central office and to write articles to various magazines.
jayasala42